Sunday, January 30, 2011

February Night this coming Monday, the 7th

Classical Underground Showcase:

JOVE WANG

It is a distinct pleasure to introduce a long time friend and one of the most accomplished California figurative realist painters Jove Wang.

A graduate of the prestigious China Academy of Fine Arts, a highly influential art training center in China, Jove studied under renowned master artist Guo Gang who in turn was trained by the leading artists of the Leningrad Academy of the Soviet Union in the 1950s. The Russian Realism genesis of some of today's most exciting Chinese realist artists is a remarkable phenomenon in contemporary Chinese art and a vibrantly significant part in newly emerging Realist Movement of the contemporary American art.

Bold and poetic all within the same confident and unsentimental brush stroke, Jove's work in all variety of subjects rides on the hieghtened sensibility and depth of his color harmonies and presents a rare sensation of exhilarating and refined force of paint.

New Century, Old Century, oil on linen, 84" x 60"

As always - bring your spirits, food and drink for you and your friends to enjoy. Please RSVP via Paypal. If you have problems with PayPal - don't wait - email us right away at classicalunderground@yahoo.com! P.S. We are SOLD OUT!

Dear friends,

Our prelude to Valentine's Day is full of romance and opera, CU debuts, and old favorites.

In a CU first, we are thrilled to welcome Andreas Mitisek, the Artistic Director of the Long Beach Opera, and members of the Long Beach Opera performing arias from Philip Glass's Akhnaten, including a love duet between Akhnaten and his queen, Nefertiti. The love connection was obvious, but we had no idea how timely the Egyptian connection would be!

Making his CU debut, violinist Radu Pieptea with pianist Bryan Pezzone will perform the Violin Sonata of Richard Strauss, a passionate early work written under the spell of his soon-to-be wife Pauline, and full of hints at his future operatic style.

Another rising local star, pianist Ryan McCullough, makes his CU debut with Liszt and Rachmaninoff, and talented young CU regular Pavel Petrov turns up the flames on the Steinway with preludes and impromptus of Scriabin.

Ludmila Adzhemova, noted teacher and Grand Dame of LA violin, will give us a taste of the most romantic violin sonata of all, the Franck... or as Martha Argerich calls it, Franckenstein -- it is a monster for the pianist, too! In this case, CU's own Yulya Barsky.

Mission Statement

We feel THAT what is missing the most in today’s world. In great debate weather ART has a future in a commercialized world of ours, we say ART is the Future.

It has to be ART, though true and pure, to make it through. Gone is the tiring age of fake, pump and pretense. Gone are the murky waters. All else stripped – ART stands in all its naked Relevance.

We believe in ART. Not as just another way of making a living, but as the very Way of Life.

We are the Underground and we stand in a subversive opposition to all and every accepted tacitly way the commercially driven society treats ART. We consider ART being a form of ultimate subversion in a greed-glorifying world and we argue a singular importance of ART outside commercialism and corrupt institutionalism within the society in crisis.

ART shall bring back what bankers had stolen from the society – the common purpose being anything else other than militant, blatant greed.

We are Classical and we stand on the shoulders of combined labor and sacrifice of cultural giants humanity managed to produce despite all its shortfalls and who were able to surpass all constraints of time and fads of the moment. The essence of their timeless creations, which is pure and true ART, stands as final testimony to in-suppressible powers of human spirit bearing extreme relevance to our time.

We stand in firm belief in fresh vitality and visceral strength of Classical, Humanistic in nature, content, philosophy and worldview for our truly modern audiences and viewers.

We are there to support and to amplify the voice of anyone across disciplines who we think is instrumental in this process.

With the Clarity of Intent we will find new ways ART can sustain itself and expand in these troubled times as Artists - some of true Heroes of Society - shall be able to enjoy the fruits of their intense, hard labor and sacrifice which is a pure Labor of Love. To that end we all work and contribute in a collaborative spirit in name of ART and Friendship. We will do everything to share ART and spread the word, as ART is the ever-flaming torch in a society facing Storm.